Don't ever hand your phone to the cops | Hacker News Reader

Don't ever hand your phone to the cops

theverge.com

37 pointsdylan60418 comments

Never, but never, in any situation should you give a police officer a turned-on mobile phone. First, turn it off and then hand it over. It’s as simple as saying, “Hey Siri, turn off phone,” and then confirming. Once this is done, the phone is indistinguishable from a brick in terms of stored information. If you hand it over turned on but locked, there are several police devices that can unlock it and copy the information it contains.

What? They can just turn it on..

*OP means shut down

The article puts the important part at the bottom.

> There are some minor protections built into Apple and Google’s current systems — you can display an encrypted ID without fully unlocking your phone, and various authorities can scan your ID wirelessly if they have special readers.

Don’t hand over your unlocked phone.

Also: if your face or your fingers unlock your phone the police can force you to unlock your phone and your legal protections against that may be weaker: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/04/cops-can-force-s...

Regardless of legal protections it is easier to force your face in front of a phone than force tou to remember a thing.

Fortunately, though it may not be well known, on iPhone you can press the power and volume up simultaneously to disable Touch ID or Face ID until the passcode or password are entered.

Yep. The unlocked part seems to be missing from the headline. You don't have to unlock your phone to show something on your wallet.

This is entirely how airline boarding passes and Starbucks coffee cards work.

I've always been a little unclear on just how good "don't ever talk to a cop" is, for ordinary encounters like a traffic stop. I'm plenty leery of police but I don't particularly want to escalate a situation where I'm already at a massive disadvantage.

But yeah, it does seem like keeping your physical ID handy is a good idea. Handing over an unlocked phone seems like asking for trouble.

In my opinion, nobody with sane mind would want to escalate when dealing with the cops. But you cannot expect the same from the other side.

I used to be pretty neutral on the topics of LEOs until I saw all those videos where even if someone is crawling on the ground and bawling their eyes out begging the cop not to shoot them, the cops can still shoot them.

And the judge will side with the cops.

Nowadays I don't trust cops. If I have to interact with one, I will try to be calm but I will always assume anything and everything they do or say is to my detriment.

> I will always assume anything and everything they do or say is to my detriment.

Precisely this. Never open your mouth.

Given I've never had a criminal charge, take with a grain of salt. I've always been polite and engaging for all civil infractions (like speeding tickets), however, if I think they are moving towards a criminal charge, I'd invoke my 5th and would cooperate as required, but no further.

Be polite. If a LEO wants to escalate, they will.

There is a term called “grey rocking” when dealing with unstable people. You react as if you are a lump of stone, no emotion. Don’t give them anything to react to.

If a cop has cause to search you, they will. If they ask, they are still looking for that cause.

When they ask, simply say that you are exercising your 4th amendment rights. If they continue to press you, ask if you are free to go. If they say no, then sign the ticket or ask for a lawyer if you are getting charged.

Here’s the best talk I’ve seen on this https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE

This is a valid concern, but there are other issues too, such as if the battery power runs out.

I do not know anything about the US law, but I know phones. A decent locked phone is not unlockable without your cooperation (no matter the FUD). Your cooperation may mean forcing your fingers or face to unlock.

A switched off phone with a decent PIN cannot be unlocked without said PIN.

So it is always better yo switch it off before losing control over it.

Define decent: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/14344-cellebrite-premium-ju...

I see that Cellebite (the essence of parasite company BTW) does not work for Samsung S11 and beyond (so 2019 and later). I have a Samsung S22+ which has a few years.

This seems to imply that basically all Samsung devices are supported: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24833831-cellebrite-...

The first Trump shooter had a Samsung device and Cellebrite was able to gain access to it in 40 minutes.

There's also GreyKey, Azimuth and other companies that have similar software that work with other device models.

It all depends on the state the phone was in when the shooter was killed. I had a look at the Cellebrite documentation at https://cellebrite.com/fr/services-avances/ - this in French and the interesting part for Samsung reads Extraction complète du système de fichiers Android (Samsung Galaxy S10, Note 10 et toutes les Séries A (2019) (Full Android File System Extraction (Samsung Galaxy S10, Note 10 and all A Series (2019))

Such software relies on vulnerabilities that are fixed once they are found, and therefore they offer bounties of ~1M€ for a RCE without user interaction instead of going to the vendor (who will offer, best case, 10x less)

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